Chapter 2
The Injection

"Turn left," Bruce directs and the car takes a sharp left. Bruce's body barely even moves because the ropes are tied too tight around him for any slack. "You're going straight through the light," his voice drones. The Joker nods and gives his passenger a sideways look. It's the first time he has paid any direct attention to him since they'd gotten into the car. "Turn right up there."

And the car jerks to the right.

They find themselves a little ways out of the palisades in front of a local convenience store.

The Joker parks on the side of the building, and after cutting off the engine, he turns to Bruce. "Now, just in case you get any funny ideas about running off -"

"I'm tied to the seat." His tone is blunt. The Joker ignores him with an offended smack of the lips. He reaches into his purple trench coat, fumbling around for a couple seconds, then finally pulls out a syringe filled with a clear liquid. A tiny blue bead flashes brightly within it.

Bruce flickers a bewildered, questioning stare at him.

"It's a tracker," the Joker answers as he examines it in his hand. Bruce curses himself to hell and back for not anticipating these sorts of dirty tricks sooner – there was no way out, now. Especially now there was a chance he would be drugged unconscious in the passenger seat of the Joker's car. He's been forced into a corner, so to speak.

A gloved hand takes hold of his elbow while the other holds the needle.

Bruce grits his teeth. Of course he wouldn't do so much as sterilize the area beforehand. Hell, Bruce didn't even know if the needle itself was sterile. If the tracker - and whatever drugs were in there - wouldn't lead to his demise, then a disease most certainly will.

There's a sharp pinch and as the Joker presses down on the syringe, then it starts to feel more and more like he had just been stabbed with a knife. Bruce starts getting dizzy. The Joker keeps the needle in his arm for a couple seconds longer, but that's just because he's distracted by a bruise located further up Bruce's arm.

His perplexed expression deepens as he lifts Bruce's sleeve up further to reveal more bruises and scars.

Turns out, Bruce was right about getting drugged. He could feel it working through his system already. When he snaps, "What are you looking at?" to the Joker, it's a bit slurred and (not entirely) intentional.

The Joker pauses for a moment in thought. His face turns sour. Tugging Bruce's sleeve down with a vengeance, he lets out a huff as he lifts himself up out of the car. "I have more where that came from, Brucey, if you ever start thinkin' you want out. Stay here." He pats Bruce's face.

When the driver's door slams shut, it rings in his ears.

He whips his head around wildly, trying to examine his surroundings but failing to focus on any particular details. The Joker's preoccupying an ATM off to the left, and to the right, he sees trees. The space between those two objects were a blur. The ropes around his wrists are starting to loosen, but not enough for him to slip his hands out; his arms felt too heavy for that anyway.

Bruce's head falls, and he tries to focus on the door latch. Focus. Focus.

The door's unlocked.

He struggles against the restraints; the last thing he remembers before he passes out is the sound of the car doors being locked.

Bruce only awakes after they're back on the road again. He has no idea where they are or what road they're on, though he was sure something had to have been familiar outside the window.

It isn't familiar.

He grunts with the effort of lifting his head after it has been stuck hanging in one position for too long. He rolls it against the headrest, blinking furiously up at the roof of the car to rid the blurriness from his eyes.

Things seem so surreal. Just thirty minutes ago he was sitting at home enjoying the daily newspaper, then those jokers had to kidnap and give him a passport right into this hell on wheels, halfway out of it on some drug pumped into his system.

If Bruce moves his head just a little to the side, he can see the tracker flashing under his skin. It has a bright blue glow that illuminates the skin surrounding it, one that makes him feel sick to his stomach. He knew that the Joker was crazy, but damn, that was just unnecessary.

His thoughts begin to drift. The Joker said Georgia, right? And they're presumably still in New York. That's about seventeen or so hours worth of driving if the clown's persistent enough.

What would Alfred say, if he could see him one last time? The man somehow has the power to cast light onto any situation, no matter how dim it may be. He always figured that it was just the work of the British. Bruce begins daydreaming about the possible snarky remarks his butler would give about his current predicament.

He figures that it would probably something along the lines of, 'Well, Master Wayne, at least you can fill in that travel checklist I got you last year.'

Even the thought of Alfred could make him feel better. It couldn't make his head stop spinning, though.

In contrast, when he catches the Joker's eye, his mouth twitches into a deadly sneer.

"You smoke?" the Joker asks purposefully oblivious, opening a package with one hand. He pulls out a cigarette and offers it in Bruce's direction.

"No."

At that, the Joker raises his painted eyebrows. He pauses a moment before bringing the cigarette to his own mouth, tossing the package down onto the center console. "Suit yourself." Soon enough, as they speed down an empty strip of highway, Bruce starts drifting off again, this time surrounded by gray wisps of tobacco smoke.